New ward for rural Hastings

Rural Hastings people will have a separate ward to vote for when they head to the polls for the Hawke's Bay Regional Council elections in October.

The Local Government Commission, which decides on the wards, electoral boundaries and the number of councillors for each council, has determined there is a case for the regional council to introduce a new ward to represent its rural people.

Hastings District Council, its rural community board, supported by the Napier City Council, requested the new rural ward when the commission reviewed the electoral boundaries earlier this year.

The Hastings council submitted that a clearer urban-rural split would better represent the diverse communities in the district, particularly for rural voters.

Regional council previously had a rural Hastings constituency before 2007 and the new constituency has similar boundaries.

The commission had also agreed to the regional council's request to declare Central Hawke's Bay and Wairoa separate "communities of interest".

The number of regional councillors would remain at nine, representing five constituencies for the 2013 elections. It included Wairoa, with one councillor, for a population of 8430. There would be three councillors for Napier with 19,260 people per councillor. CHB's one councillor would serve 13,430 people. The one Hastings rural councillor would serve 18,535 people while the three Hastings urban councillors would be responsible for a population of 18,535 people each.

The commission will issue a formal public notice with a map showing the boundaries of the five constituencies. "We were satisfied, on the basis of the arguments put to us by the council and supported by all of the objectors, that there was a case for reducing the size of Central Hawke's Bay Constituency to coincide with Central Hawke's Bay District," the commission said in its decision.

The commission said it was appropriate boundaries for the regional council coincided with district council boundaries.